JaVale McGee makes his debut and is the hero in what was a beautiful start, an awful middle, and a sweet ending at the Pepsi Center as the Nuggets beat the Pistons 116-115. Ben Gordon was perfect on the night from beyond the arc, but he didn’t take his final shot from deep. And Arron Afflalo has been a clutch free throw shooter since his 3-3 performance against the Kings at the end of regulation, but not tonight … but that was okay because of McGee’s game-winning put-back. This kid McGee can play …
If you saw the game, feel free to skip ahead to the "Game Recap" towards the bottom.
1st Quarter:
- Here we go … Ty Lawson, Arron Afflalo, Wilson Chandler, Kenneth Faried, and Timofey Mozgov to start … love Chandler being back on the team. Still feel like he’s the best overall player on the Nuggets roster. Kid can get to the rim (finish there), defend, pass, post-up, shoot, and create his own shot … love his game – wish he was a touch more aggressive with the ball.
- Pistons do not have a big team AT ALL. Greg Monroe dwarfed by Moz and Jason Maxiell is a tweener like Faried. Chandler bangs home his first shot … a three! Nuggets up 5-0 with 10 minutes to go still.
- Chris Marlowe tells us that the Nuggets are 19-13 when Mozgov starts … wonder how good they’d be if he played more … or any bigs for that matter … with 8:30 left we get our first timeout and Denver is up 11-2 and looking good so far. Can Denver hold the Pistons down all night, break their will?
- First sub of the night is Al Harrington for Manimal … the usual sub. Not sure I love Big Al and Chandler on the floor at the same time, but it looks like that’s going to happen a lot. If this were Twitter, I’d put a #dealwithit hashtag on the end of this paragraph. At least Moz is still in with them tonight, for now.
- JAVALE MCGEE IS COMING IN FOR MOZ!!!! HERE WE GO! The McGee Era is underway! At the 3:35 mark he enters the game and … McGee gets an O-board, but the whistle blew just before – AAA to the foul line to give the Nuggets a 28-14 lead after hitting both freebies. McGee’s first bucket comes off a put-back dunk off an AAA miss … looked way too easy and it’s 30-14 Nuggets.
- On the defensive end, a usual sure lay-up for the opposition’s point guard is swatted by McGee – awesome. Then gets an alley-oop from Andre Miller on the other end … 34-14 Nuggets with 1:43 left.
- 40-18 Nuggets after one … hell of a quarter against a bad team. That’s how you gotta do it.
2nd Quarter:
